The camera I received in my kit is different than the one shown in the assembly. It appears to be working when I plug it into my laptop, and the scale is normal, but when I try to calibrate with the fluorescent bulb, I can only get one half of the spectrum to show up. From one direction, the red, green, and yellow beams appear, and if I flip the camera 180, I see the blue side, but I can't make them appear at the same time. Suggestions?

2 Comments

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2 Answers

I suspect you have a problem with the vertical alignment of your camera. With the camera that originally shipped with the kit there wasn't room to get this wrong. The camera would really only fit one way.
I think you need to move the camera up or down - in the direction of the missing part of your spectrum.
Its either that or you have your diffraction grating at a funny angle. You don't have the grating in backwards do you?
A picture of the insides of your spectrometer might be helpful for diagnosis, showing the position of the gating and camera.